Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to make police officer body-worn camera footage available to people who have been recorded using those systems when that is requested.
Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)
Decisions on whether to disclose body-worn video footage are matters the police, in line with Human Rights and Data Protection law.
The NPCC has published clear guidance on the standards police forces in England and Wales should follow when operating body-worn video devices and information management processes. The NPCC guidance is available here: https://www.npcc.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/media/downloads/publications/publications-log/2022/body-worn-video-guidance.pdf.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) provides guidance for people on the right of access and how to obtain personal data held by organisations, including police forces and the wider criminal justice system. The ICO guidance is available here: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/crime/
The Home Office has no plans to make any changes relating to the management by police forces of body-worn camera footage.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what support her Department is providing to small businesses and local health services to protect them from economic crime.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
We have strengthened our fight against economic crime through the publication of the landmark Economic Crime Plan in July 2019, which brought together government, law enforcement and the private sector in cooperation to deliver a whole system response to economic crime.
The total Spending Review 2021 settlement and the Economic Crime Levy represent an overall package of circa £400 million to tackle economic crime over the next three years, including fraud. This is in addition to the funding that the Home Office commits each year to the National Economic Crime Centre in the NCA, and police forces.
Tackling fraud requires a unified and co-ordinated response from government, law enforcement and the private sector to better protect the public and businesses of all sizes, reduce the impact on victims, and increase the disruption and prosecution of fraudsters. This is why the Home Office will shortly be publishing a new strategy to address the threat of fraud.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate her Department has made of the percentage of police resources devoted to tackling economic crime in each of the last three years.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
Fraud, money laundering and bribery related offences, typically considered to be economic crime, made up 16% of all police recorded crime in the year to September 2022.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what percentage of all recorded crime was classed as an economic crime in each of the last three years.
Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)
Fraud, money laundering and bribery related offences, typically considered to be economic crime, made up 16% of all police recorded crime in the year to September 2022.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many businesses have been victims of criminal cyber attacks in each of the last five years.
Answered by Damian Hinds - Minister of State (Education)
It is not possible to provide the number of businesses who have been victims of criminal cyber attacks as the Home Office does not collate this information.
The Cyber Security Breaches Survey estimates the % of businesses each year that have reported a cyber security breach or attack. This surveys approximately 1,000 businesses per year.
The Cyber Security Breaches Survey includes businesses with 1 or more employees. Therefore these figures do not include sole traders. These estimates also exclude SIC A/ Agriculture as this sector is excluded from the Cyber Security Breaches Survey.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many of the additional 20,000 Police Officers will be allocated to (a) Hertfordshire Police and (b) British Transport Police.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
Hertfordshire Police has been allocated 91 officers in year one of the uplift. These officers are to be recruited by the end of March 2021. This is supported by an increase of £15.9m in 2020/21. Decisions on the allocation of officers for years two and three are yet to be taken.
The British Transport Police are not included within the allocation of officers for the 20,000 uplift. They are funded directly by train operators and are a separate entity from the 43 territorial forces.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when her Department plans to publish its response to the review of the regulation of air weapons in England and Wales, published in October 2017.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
The Government fully understands the interest that Members of Parliament and others have in the outcomes of the review of air weapons regulation, and the concerns that have been expressed about the consequences, sometimes tragic, arising from the misuse of these weapons.
We intend to publish our conclusions in due course, alongside a consultation on firearms safety issues, to which we committed during the passage of the Offensive Weapons Bill.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Government is taking to prevent the procurement of personal information by criminal organisations.
Answered by Ben Wallace
The lawful use of personal information in the United Kingdom is governed by the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/79 and the Data Protection Act which this Government passed in 2018, and overseen by the independent Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO carries out a wide programme of activity (such as investigation into reported data breaches and audits of organisations’ processing) which helps to ensure that organisations meet their obligations with regard to protecting the personal information they hold from being misused or falling into criminal hands. It can also issue Enforcement Notices requiring organisations to take certain actions, and can impose fines of up to 4% of annual turnover or €20m (whichever is higher) for serious breaches of Data Protection.
The Government has strengthened the law enforcement response to cyber crime, including to disrupt and deter criminal efforts to gain personal information through hacking and other computer misuse offences. Through the National Cyber Security Programme (NCSP), the Home Office has invested over £200 million since 2010, in the law enforcement response to the cyber crime threat, and we continue to invest. In the last year we have seen the launch of specialist Cyber Crime Units in every local police force, supported by funding from Government. We continue to invest in improving the capabilities of the NCA’s National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU) and of the cyber teams in each of the Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCUs) across England and Wales.
Through the Government’s Cyber Aware programme we have also provided the public and small businesses with the latest advice on how to take simple steps that will protect them and their personal information from cyber crime.
We have launched a new three year programme led by the Home Office to tackle illicit use of the dark web. This will build on the ongoing investigative work of policing and intelligence agencies to disrupt and bring to justice those who use the anonymity of the Dark Web to trade in illegal goods and services, including personal data.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will introduce a knife amnesty in England and Wales.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Tackling knife crime is a priority for the Government. Knife amnesties are an operational matter for individual police forces, and we have been encouraging police forces to undertake national coordinated weeks of action to tackle knife crime under Operation Sceptre.
Action under Operation Sceptre includes police forces targeting habitual knife carriers, undertaking weapon sweeps of local areas, test purchases of knives from retailers, and highlighting the location of surrender bins where knives can be handed in locally. Twenty one forces took part in the most recent week of national action in October 2016.
Asked by: Stephen McPartland (Conservative - Stevenage)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress the National Group on Sexual Violence Against Children and Vulnerable People has made on establishing a Child Sexual Exploitation Response Unit; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The actions which stemmed from the National Group’s work have been incorporated into a cross-Whitehall CSA Programme which includes the actions from the “Tackling CSE” report published in March 2015, and the WeProtect Summit in December 2014.
Good progress is being made across the range of commitments in the CSA Programme, including that to establish a new national response unit to help local areas when child sexual exploitation is a particular concern. The Government will publish a progress report on all actions within the Programme one year on from the publication of “Tackling CSE”.